Gsxr 1000 ride to/from superbike
Imagine being me for just these few moments. Youre headed back from an incredible superbike event, at which you yelled and "air horned" Mat Mladin and Ben Spies, you watched two wrecks, one in the 600s and one in the formula extremes, you stood in the sun with the cool breeze billowing by every few seconds, drinking way too much, eating far too little. The race is over, you are back at your bike, because you did in fact RIDE there. Youre feeling good, youre sober, youre stuff is all still at your bike, and you gear up to go. Its been a great day.
You throw a leg over the bike, and start her up. The 1000 cc motor spinning to life with a throaty tail pipe roar. Your buddy next to you gets his started, and soon the five bikes in your group are creating chaos for the eardrums of all who pass by.
Somewhere on the highway, your mind wanders and the reality of the vulnerable position you put yourself in by being on the bike in the first place. You think of the sould you have known and lost along the way, who lived and played and loved life. Youre barely conscious of the speedometer reading 85, which is fast but not even beginning to push the big motor on your beastly bike. And for those few moments, you let it all go, all of the stress, all of that negative energy, you let it go. We live each day in this rat race, this chaos conundrum, and here you are, cruising at a seemingly gentle speed, and feeling a relief you havent felt in a very long time. The thrill of the twist of the throttle gives you a rush, the feeling of speeding down the highway at a totally unacceptable rate of speed creates that adrenaline high, but not today, or at least not right now.... right now you know within yourself that at any given moment a catastrophy could occur, and that realization brings you to realize one thing. I am alive. Your living in that moment, you are enjoying your life, your stress has been left somewhere in the wind behind you, and you are free of it all. If you could stand on the front of your bike and do the Leo Dicario rip off of I am the king of the world, you would because the rushing air, the sound of your bike, the feel of the road, the smells, the sights of everything passing by, it envelopes you and pulls you deep into its thresh hold, and you do not want to be let go.
You cant let your mind wander too long on a bike, you know this, and your mind is back in focus, but you are somehow "better" for this one... somehow the world is a little easier to take, the people in it just a little kinder, and you a little wiser.
We race.... we push ourselves into a position that most sane human beings can not begin to understand. They ask us, "why" with that mortified look, that look that tells you it isnt even worth even trying to explain your position as a rider and a racer. And we push ourselves to the edge, some of the times, clear over it. And we love it. We would do it over and over again, and are willing to die in order to keep doing it. That freedom, that adrenaline rush, that excitement that gets every bit of your flesh in a jumpy, jittery mess. I only hope that when it is my time, I can say I had a good run.... that I did well in life, and that I rode until the day I died. I hope I do not have to sit and suffer treatments, or be plauged with illness, because, well, that just isnt going to happen. So, "why"? To sum it up, because "I CAN"!
To my friend John, whose kindness was astounding, and who left many stories in his book yet to be written. Godspeed.